5 Critical Skill Set Attributes All Comedians Must Have

What Critical Skill Set Attributes Should a Comedian Possess to Slay an Audience?

By “slaying an audience,” I am specifically referring to generating 4-6+ quality laughs per minute for an average of 18+ seconds of audience laughter each performing minute.

Slaying an audience is not just about getting a few chuckles here and there; it’s about creating a powerful connection with the audience that keeps them engaged and laughing consistently throughout your set. This requires a precise combination of skill, preparation, and an understanding of what makes people laugh.

I would say that the skill set for a comedian would include at least these 5 essential attributes:

1. Knowledge of How to Develop and Structure Stand-Up Comedy Material

A review of any pro comedian’s stand-up comedy performance will reveal that they are able to generate an average of 4-6+ quality audience laughs every performing minute. Every comedian is afforded the exact same 60 seconds each minute to generate audience laughter.

Needless to say, if a comedian does not know how to tightly structure their stand-up comedy material, they simply won’t get the audience laughs they need to make any headway.

Structuring material effectively means understanding the rhythm and pacing required to keep the audience engaged. This involves knowing when to deliver a punchline and how to build up to it in a way that feels natural and spontaneous, yet carefully crafted.

Note: Outside my online course, I am not aware of any other reference or resource that addresses this issue of structuring stand-up comedy material to get 4-6+ laughs per minute by design right from the start.

However, laughs per minute is NOT the most accurate gauge of a comedian’s performance level. For example, if a comedian gets 6 laughs per minute but each laugh is only 1 second long, then they are not doing well.

A far better indicator of a comedian’s performance level is the average seconds of laughter a comedian can generate. Headline-level pro comedians generate an average of 18+ seconds of laughter per minute.

If you have a smartphone, then you most likely already have all the tools (apps) installed to find out just how well you or any other comedian is doing in the seconds of laughter per minute department (see #5 below).

2. A Thorough Understanding of What Punchlines Really Are

There’s no rocket science involved in understanding that if a comedian wants to get 4-6+ audience laughs per minute with their stand-up comedy material, they need to deliver 4-6+ punchlines per minute.

The difficulty lies in not really knowing what a punchline is (and I’m not talking about the standard and worthless definitions of a punchline).

There is no actionable information in simply knowing that a punchline is the funny part of a joke or that it contains an element of surprise. As a matter of fact…

If you can tell me exactly how knowing the parts of a joke can help you to easily use your sense of humor to produce original stand-up comedy material for audiences, let me know in the comments section below.

You do realize that you continually produce original stand-up material anytime that you say something that causes laughter to occur, right? Not only that…

Not once did you need to know the parts of any joke to cause laughter to happen when you talk to people you know and meet.

Knowing what a punchline truly is for you, in relation to your natural sense of humor, is crucial. It allows you to tap into your innate comedic timing and delivery, which is far more effective than trying to adhere to some rigid, textbook definition of what a punchline should be.

3. Understanding That Most of a Comedian’s Laughter Generation Power Is Not in the Words Alone

Unfortunately, most new comedians tend to be fixated on “writing” stand-up comedy material in the literal sense without realizing that:

• Writing is a form of communication designed to communicate with a reader, not as a visual expression to another person or audience.
• Talking is a form of communication that uses multiple communication attributes designed for a listener or an observer and, unlike writing, engages much more than just words and sentences.

Audiences don’t “read” stand-up comedy material—they experience it as it is delivered by the comedian.

Note: Talking involves fewer words than writing because there are more communication methods being engaged than just words alone (as in the case with writing).

This means that your delivery, timing, and expression are just as important—if not more so—than the words themselves. A well-timed pause, a raised eyebrow, or a change in tone can turn a simple sentence into a punchline that brings the house down.

4. The Discipline to Rehearse and Deliver a Solid Stand-Up Act Without Using Notes

Using notes kills a comedian’s chances of gaining any significant momentum on stage or, even worse, a comedian ends up performing stand-up comedy like an unprepared and unprofessional individual.

When you rely on notes, you disrupt the natural flow of your performance and risk losing the audience’s engagement. Confidence and preparation are key, and these come from rehearsing your material until it’s second nature.

It would also be very prudent for a comedian to know the secrets for rehearsing and testing stand-up comedy material for maximum impact — before they ever hit the stage.

Rehearsing doesn’t just mean memorizing your lines—it’s about finding the right delivery, timing, and pacing that work best for you and your material.

5. The Discipline to Record and Review Each Performance

The discipline to video or audio record each performance and the knowledge on how to review each performance for adjustments, edits, improvements, etc., is crucial.

Here’s the real bottom line:

The laughter a comedian can generate during a performance is the direct result of the process they use to develop and deliver their stand-up comedy material.

If a comedian can’t get the laughs they want when they hit the stage, it means that the process they are using is failing them.

Now that most everyone has a smartphone, it truly only takes a small amount of knowledge to be able to conduct a performance evaluation on your stand-up comedy act (or anyone else’s) to know objectively where you stand and the parts of your act you need to focus on first.

www.comedyevaluatorpro.com

Stand-up Comedy Metrics | Laughter Measurement - Comedy Evaluator Pro

This article describes the objective and measurable metrics associated with headliner level comedian laughter levels.

Every comedian has 100% control over the process they use to develop and deliver their stand-up comedy material.

Reviewing your performance is not just about identifying what went wrong—it’s also about recognizing what went right. Knowing your strengths allows you to refine and build upon them, making your next performance even stronger.

Wrap-Up

If you spend some time reviewing the articles on this blog, you should have a very good understanding of why “traditional” processes don’t work well, if at all, to get a comedian the big and frequent audience laughs they need to make headway as a comedian.

If you want to see “traditional” processes in action, you need only sit through several stand-up comedy open mic nights to see the less-than-favorable results most new comedians experience when they get to the stage.

Keep this in mind as you move forward in your research about how to become a comedian:

The goal is ALWAYS to generate headliner-level laughter for every performance possible — a minimum average of 18+ seconds of laughter for each performing minute (Par Score 30).

Note: A comedian does not have to hold the “title” of headliner to generate headliner laughter levels during their performances. But they do need to know precisely what they are doing when it comes to developing and delivering a powerful stand-up comedy routine.

What I have presented in this article are 5 bare-bones skill set items every comedian who is after stand-up comedy success must possess, no matter what their delivery “style,” appearance, or content may be.

These critical skill set items and much more are an integral part of the education provided by the Killer Stand-up Online Course.